Photo of the Wisconsin state capitol building by Brent Gohde
by Bjarni Thoroddsson and Jia-Jia Zhu
This past weekend was the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, and several hundred attendees made their centerpoint a march with AQE, Citizen Action, and New York Communities for Change to the Governor’s Mansion in protest of the second round of billion dollar cuts to education. Governor Cuomo and his heavily business influenced budget plan again met serious opposition. The opposition to his plan centers around his misguided belief that mutual sacrifice means cuts to public services, coupled by tax cuts for the state’s wealthiest residents. Similar to the sentiment being voiced all across the nation, New Yorkers are asking themselves whether it can truly be that this reflects the priorities that will improve our state.
There are alternatives–alternatives which help to strengthen the voices of New Yorkers, and Citizen Action has joined in the Growing Together New York Coalition to present its case.
In many ways, this is the same question that erupted the protests in Wisconsin, which has now also been championed by progressive activists in Ohio and Indiana. The answer to the question is of course a resounding “No.” Their objection and our objection is not to the understood need for a reassessment of budget allocations. Union willingness to carry their share of the burden is well documented. No, our objection is to the blatant power play by the governor’s use of the current financial situation as cover to decimate collective bargaining in order to advance corporate interests. We object to the sacrifice of the interests of Wisconsin’s workers on the altar of what the governor calls fiscal responsibility–but is more accurately called political gain and special interests.
In the past few weeks, Americans have been bombarded with squeals of union excess, but unions didn’t cause financial crisis after financial crisis. And unions certainly don’t behave like Barclays Bank who has been forced to confirm that they only paid 1% in taxes. In another example, American companies have brazenly said recently that they’re willing to transfer the profits they keep in oversea banks to the states only if they are guaranteed a tax holiday. Amongst these are companies who make annual profits above $20 billion. Where is all that cash going?
In a final note, progressive activists have also started to resonate with the struggle for democracy in the Middle East. And while equating an open revolution against decades of terrible oppression with the unrest here in the states is indisputably a difference in scale of several magnitudes, these movements center around the same question of fundamental values. In its simplest form, whether justice and the rights and well-being of a people take a back seat to the wishes of the wealthy and powerful, whether the needs of the many are outweighed by the wants of the few.